Obnoxious journalist blasts Terry Pratchett without even having read one of his books

Links234

Get real. Terry Pratchett is not a literary genius

It does not matter to me if Terry Pratchett’s final novel is a worthy epitaph or not, or if he wanted it to be pulped by a steamroller. I have never read a single one of his books and I never plan to. Life’s too short.

What an obnoxious, pompous, self-important buffoon, I'd say he's in serious danger of choking on his own smugness. I bet he saves a lot on travel costs, because he can easily get around on his own hot air. And let it never be said that The Guardian doesn't stoop to Daily Mail level outrage bait, because some editor had to read this piece of Journalistic auto-felatio and approved it. Ass.

strelok

i don't think anyone would ever say the guardian doesn't stoop to outrage bait, they employ jesicca valenti for petes sake

Duggy747

Ah, The Guardian have been going down this click-baiting path for a few years now.

What an absolute rag it's become.

Links234

Duggy747 wrote: »

What an absolute rag it's become.

Become? It's been like this for a long, long time.

GLaDOS

Well, they're wrong.

Like I know it's subjective and all, but they're simply wrong.

paperclip2

'I've never read one of his books but I'm going to assume they're rubbish and have a pop at his legacy.'

Muppet. :rolleyes:

OneOfThem

Links234 wrote: »

Get real. Terry Pratchett is not a literary genius



What an obnoxious, pompous, self-important buffoon, I'd say he's in serious danger of choking on his own smugness. I bet he saves a lot on travel costs, because he can easily get around on his own hot air. And let it never be said that The Guardian doesn't stoop to Daily Mail level outrage bait, because some editor had to read this piece of Journalistic auto-felatio and approved it. Ass.

And you've reposted it here, with a link no less. Like many other Terry Pratchett fans are probably going to do on other sites. Driving traffic directly to the site and helping to push the article link up the Google SEO ranking dealy. You've been played.

EricPraline

It's pure click-bait trash, and unfortunately it works. Can't think of an online newspaper that doesn't resort to this behaviour in some form in order to boost their click/view metrics. Posting the link here just helps the author.

osarusan

I have no problem with anybody saying Pratchett is not a literary genius...but it is pretty stupid to say it about him or any other writer when you haven't actually read even one of their works.

Links234

OneOfThem wrote: »

And you've reposted it here, with a link no less. Like many other Terry Pratchett fans are probably going to do on other sites. Driving traffic directly to the site and helping to push the article link up the Google SEO ranking dealy. You've been played.

They played me like a damn fiddle!

Seriously, that article gave me Forest Whitaker eye

syklops

Links234 wrote: »

Get real. Terry Pratchett is not a literary genius



What an obnoxious, pompous, self-important buffoon, I'd say he's in serious danger of choking on his own smugness. I bet he saves a lot on travel costs, because he can easily get around on his own hot air. And let it never be said that The Guardian doesn't stoop to Daily Mail level outrage bait, because some editor had to read this piece of Journalistic auto-felatio and approved it. Ass.

And yet you've linked to the article but not named the journalist in question. This is the definition of click-bait.

o1s1n

syklops wrote: »

And yet you've linked to the article but not named the journalist in question. This is the definition of click-bait.

'Obnoxious Journalist' is a fine name for him after reading that article.

Ben D Bus

It's Johnathan Jones. A professional arts troll. Ignore.

Birneybau

Ben D Bus wrote: »

It's Johnathan Jones. A professional arts troll. Ignore.

Came here to say exactly the same. Dude is famous for the cr@p he comes out with.

Check this piece of work out:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2015/aug/12/kim-kardashian-pregnancy-selfie-titian-art

Slightly NSFW pic at top of article.

Barely There

I like when people get angry about the subjective opinions of others.

sipstrassi

He'a better staying away from Terry's books to be honest, there's no companion work to interpret Discworld as there is with Jane Austen's or any of the other classic writers, so he'd probably struggle.

valoren

I'd say he just loves that his name is written in the unusual manner.

Johnathan and not Jonathan.

It's a commonly misppelled name. Jonathon? Johnatan? Johnathon?

I'd say he get's some perverse delight in correcting people.

valoren

Barely There wrote: »

I like when people get angry about the subjective opinions of others.

Isn't his an objective view instead of a subjective one?

He's looking at Pratchett's work from his own opinion on what the books are probably going to be like instead of the subjective opinion of actually reading one of the books, hell, not even a whole book, a chapter even and then subjectively deciding that "This is crap!".

It's not getting angry really, it's just pointing out someone who is writing bullsh1t. It's trolling. And poor trolling at that.

Cienciano

After reading this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Jones_(journalist)
It sounds like he's one of those journalists that just wants to wind people up to get noticed. Sounds like it's working too.

kylith

valoren wrote: »

Isn't his an objective view instead of a subjective one?

He's looking at Pratchett's work from his own opinion on what the books are probably going to be like instead of the subjective opinion of actually reading one of the books, hell, not even a whole book, a chapter even and then subjectively deciding that "This is crap!".

It's not getting angry really, it's just pointing out someone who is writing bullsh1t. It's trolling. And poor trolling at that.

You'd have a hard time reading a chapter of most of Discworld. For years the cover proudly bore a review that read "A complete amateur... doesn't even write in chapters".


On the one hand I want to read this article and be outraged, but on the other I don't want to give this tosser the oxygen of publicity.

Neyite

He is only showing himself up to be honest. By all means review a book, critique it, slate it but at least read the bloody thing.

Terry Pratchett was knighted for his services to literature, was an award winning novelist and sold 85,000,000 books world wide. And I remember he always came across as gracious and self-depreciating, despite his immense talent. This eejit could learn a lot from a writer like Terry Pratchett.

Daith

"In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book.”

pickarooney

Gabriel Garcia Marquez - champion of the literary telenovela.

The_Captain

Terry Pratchett isn't a literary genius though. Solid, entertaining writer, but nothing he's done is particularly genre-changing.

The Backwards Man

I'd far rather an eejit with a keyboard that bores us with their own opinion than one who flat out makes stuff up tbh.

Rym Shanley

Links234 wrote: »

What an obnoxious, pompous, self-important buffoon, I'd say he's in serious danger of choking on his own smugness. I bet he saves a lot on travel costs, because he can easily get around on his own hot air. And let it never be said that The Guardian doesn't stoop to Daily Mail level outrage bait, because some editor had to read this piece of Journalistic auto-felatio and approved it. Ass.

Well, there's two ways of looking at this.

1) - Jonathan Jones is an insufferable bore whose comments on Terry Pratchett are appallingly arrogant and display breathtaking ignorance.

or

2) - Jonathan Jones' comments are annoying but there's a certain grain of truth in them. And they're totally justified and worth it - because they annoy people like Links234 and make them go off on a narcissistic flounce. "Oh look at me! I'm so outraged".

Obviously I'm in the second camp.

NachoBusiness

Ah Jonathan Jones.

I was going to start a thread about another of this muppet's articles a few weeks back when he declared Kim Kardashian a feminist artist after seeing her up the duff selfie she tweeted.

Kim Kardashian reclaims the beauty of being pregnant in her latest impressive selfie. In soft light, she sports an even more curvaceous form than usual: even more contours to revel in.

It’s a hymn to the female body that would have been far more familiar in the Renaissance than today. Stomach bulges are so common in Renaissance nudes that historians argue over whether or not they represent pregnancy. Van Eyck’s Eve and Raphael’s La Fornarina can both be seen as pregnant – or not – and their stomachs are very much part of their sensuality.

Titian loved women with big arms and thighs and plenty of golden flesh. He also painted pregnancy as a beautiful metamorphosis in his Diana and Callisto. Kardashian’s gorgeous selfie would undoubtedly impress him. She is raising questions about the nude today. Why can’t we glory in beauty as openly as artists did in the past? A nasty disciplinary mentality closes off the true power of the nude.

We need an art of the nude that is celebratory and loving – and Kardashian really does love her body. She is bringing back the happy, liberating openness of Renaissance and baroque art. She gets her share of criticism, but this latest selfie is brave, original – and artistic.

Neyite

but this latest selfie is brave, original – and artistic and heavily photoshopped not to mention a study in how much plastic surgery a single person can have done.

Fixed your article there for ya Jonathan!

KK a feminist?? *mind boggled*

Amirani

The Guardian is a parody. Impossible to take is seriously anymore, which is a shame considering the stuff they did on Snowden etc. Seems pointless now.

Akrasia

NachoBusiness wrote: »

Ah Jonathan Jones.

I was going to start a thread about another of this muppet's articles a few weeks back when he declared Kim Kardashian a feminist artist after seeing her up the duff selfie she tweeted.

So he's basically the guardian's version of John Waters.

NachoBusiness

Akrasia wrote: »

So he's basically the guardian's version of John Waters.

I don't think he could be more diametrically opposed to John Waters. Jones is as a feminist.

jimgoose

Another pompous little windbag who wishes he could understand Kant or Proust so he could be the pseudo-intellectual snob he really wants to be. Sure you must listen to the thunder. :pac:

Lyaiera

If I could provide a fraction as much joy for people as Pratchett did for me, I'd be thrilled. Not everything is about bettering yourself, sometimes things are about pure joy. And to be honest I know far more people who's lives have been improved by reading a Terry Pratchett novel, and having a relaxing few hours before bed than I can count without taking my shoes and socks off.

Cold War Kid

Barely There wrote: »

I like when people get angry about the subjective opinions of others.

Well your comment would have some credibility if the guy's opinion was actually subjective. Oh and informed. Basically it's not an opinion.

Pratchett, like any other book in the fantasy genre, isn't going to be for everyone. But to say anything negative about him without ever reading the books is idiotic. But it's a practice you see quite a lot. There's many film critics that review movies without ever seeing them!

chopperbyrne

Have only read one Pratchett book and it was awful.

No interest in reading any of the rest of his work.

TwoShedsJackson

'Something's not worth doing unless somebody, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing it' - Terry Pratchett.

ancapailldorcha

Didn't read the article beyond the first paragraph. Deriding someone's entire bibliography without reading any of it whatsoever is sadly the kind of behaviour I've begun to expect from the increasingly clickbait Guardian. Fortunately, I had adblock on so they won't get advertising revenue from me.

Gbear

OneOfThem wrote: »

And you've reposted it here, with a link no less. Like many other Terry Pratchett fans are probably going to do on other sites. Driving traffic directly to the site and helping to push the article link up the Google SEO ranking dealy. You've been played.

It's the perfect crime really.

There's no stopping this sort of thing.
We just can't help ourselves.

You'd need to fight fire with fire and get an article calling, whatever this intellectual pygmy's name is, a gaping asshole above his article on the Google rankings.

You'd also need to boycott their website normally, because it would cancel out any ill-gotten gains they received in advertising revenue.

I can see it being a cycle for internet journalism in the future - start off writing properly, slowly debase yourself to appeal to a larger audience, lose your original audience, become a tabloid, quality contributors start up their own site, and on the cycle goes.

chopperbyrne

chopperbyrne wrote: »

Have only read one Pratchett book and it was awful.

No interest in reading any of the rest of his work.

I'd be curious to know which one.